Faro was sitting in the garden when Vireel arrived. It was night, but no birds sang within the fruit trees that surrounded them. Even the sounds of the seagulls along the coast were dampened within the small embrace. Faro heard Vireel's approach like a whisper along the path, but he had sensed her prior to the sound—Vireel rarely let go of the Currents entirely. At the very least, she directed a subtle play of power towards her quthli. Only in the past week had Faro reached the point where he could sense it, perhaps because it was a constant gentle release that was easily ignored, like the burbling of a stream.

She wore her long-sleeved cloak, broached at the shoulder. Its color was barely discernible in the dark.

"It grieves me to have hurt you," she said. Faro did not respond. She laid a hand on his head, but he pulled away and rose to his feet.

"The realities of war are hard on the innocent," she said. "We must keep in mind—"

"I'm going to leave," Faro interjected. He sensed Vireel's muscles tighten beneath the cloak. The tension radiated from her. "You can come with me or no." He hoped she did not sense the false boldness in the statement. Despite his wish to be away from her, he did not know if he could traverse the Mingling alone and live. His instincts told him he could not.

"Where?" Vireel asked.

"I wish to see my mother and Coir."

"It was their wish that you be taught."

"Teach me in the enclave, then. Coir does not have much time. I would be with him."

He missed them; he missed his mother, and he missed Coir. Vireel's presence and the intoxication of the Currents flowing through them had overcome his loneliness at first. But after what she had done. . .

"You are not ready to face the enclaves. It is safest here," she said, stepping closer.

"Is it?" Faro asked.

"From the Synod it is. And you cannot trust the enclaves, either."

"And what of the warriors who found us?"

"I have sent my quthli to make sure that no messengers return with word of us."

Vireel took another step, so that she stood right next to him, their faces close. He could smell her hair. As if tired, she laid her forehead on his shoulder.

"You are more important to me than any other," she whispered. "Your safety. . . and our goal."

"Goal?" Faro asked.

"To free our brothers and sisters in the Nethec. The goal of Isecan."

"Is what you did today your idea of freedom?"

"I would give my life for this purpose, and so I was willing to give theirs as well. I hope one day you will understand. Change your mind, my Falo. Stay with me a little longer?"

"You can come back with me," he said.

She sighed, turning her face into the curve of his neck. She pressed her body against him a moment, then she stepped backward two paces, facing him. He could see her eyes at this distance, dark wells in the dark. He knew they were flecked with violet and yellow in the daylight. She reached up to her brooch and unclasped it, shrugging the cloak from her bare shoulders, and there she stood before him, her naked skin shining in the starlight. Faro's heart beat in his throat at the sight of her form. He had never seen a vienu's unshrouded flesh before, the supple curve of hip and breast. He stared at her beauty, wordless.

Vireel stepped toward him, a smile playing at the corners of her lips, her eyes boring into his own.

"Worry not over the fallen," she said. "You and I have a chance to bring an end to the war. An end to their will-less slavery. Their lives were not lives. Killing them was setting them free."

Vireel reached out and took Faro's hand in her own, raising it to her breast. Faro's body was pulsing, and he could hardly think. He felt weak, as if his legs might give way. Vireel reached out with her other hand and touched him.

"Do you like that?" she asked.

He did not speak. He could hardly think.

"Be with me," she said. "Take me. Mate me. Consume me." She pressed her lips against his. Her mouth was warm, and though he felt the hardness of the Change, she tasted sweet. She reached to undo the clasp of his cloak. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe, to think. This was Vireel, the elder vienu who had helped raise him.

What would his mother think? Her face came to his mind, and that of Coir.

Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author's preferred platform and support their work!

And as he saw them, he sensed it—the subtle play of the Current on his will and mind.

She was pressing against both his body and his will at once. She was distracting him so he wouldn't notice. With a surge of panic, he reached out to the Isecan Current, but she had it already, holding tight to the meager power flowing around them. He turned toward the Nethec and its distant pool. She had grasped it as well, pulling on both as she had taught him to do, trying to hinder his thoughts and subject his will. Yet still, the Current of the Nethec reached him. He touched it, taking hold of its life. She strained against him, but the Current of the Nethec responded to his touch.

He lashed out, and as her grip on his mind faltered, he pushed her bodily away. His physical strength was great, and she fell back naked to the ground. His breath came in ragged gasps, and he trembled, a wave of dizziness passing over him.

"You speak of slavery, and you would try to enslave my will!" he shouted. A spasm of rage twisted her face, an interplay of movement and Change-frozen stasis. She laid a hand upon her fallen cloak, but the emotion passed. Her features fell into placidity again. Slowly, she rose, leaving her cloak on the ground. She ran her hands down the slopes of her own body.

"You will not find a mate as strong as I," she said, her voice lurid. "And you have shown yourself worthy to lie with me." She stretched out her hand to him. This time he sensed nothing of the Current emanating from her. His heart and his body raged in response.

He did want her—to take and subject her.

Somewhere far to the west, a will turned to him, reaching out across the expanse, following the dissipating flow of the Current.

Son.

His father.

Others had turned to him. They saw him. He had drawn too much and too violently.

Startled, Faro released his grip on the Current. Vireel stepped toward him. Fear had replaced desire. He was seen by the Synod, and Vireel could not be trusted.

"Get away from me!" he said, and he ran.

She raised her voice, but not for him. He felt her call to the quthli accompanied by her will. He sensed it flow to them. They were waiting, spread out to the south, separated only by a hundred yards. The quthli were strong, and while he was a lithe vien in the first blooms of his strength, his heart beating with fear, he could not escape them for long unprepared in the Mingling.

He burst from the north edge of the copse, a mere score of yards from the waves that crashed against the rocks. He looked east and west. Could he slip past them among the rocks? His mother was in the enclaves, but Vireel might not pursue him further toward the Nethec, where his strength would be greater than hers. Yet the Synod. . .

Behind him, he heard the deep calls of quthli even over the wind. Not all were coming toward him. Around the edges of the copse, he saw that some had split away, heading eastward, and others westward. In the open ground, the quthli could lope quickly. He would be hard pressed to escape their net. For a moment, he considered plunging into the sea, but he had never swum before, and he knew the water was frigid. He turned in a circle. Vireel had not emerged from the copse. He looked out at the waves.

Then he saw it, the ice flow. It had come within a few hundred feet of the shore. Closing his eyes, Faro reached again toward the Nethec. This time, the wills awaited him, but they were distant. He tried to ignore them, focusing instead on the quthli. The first of them rounded the edge of the copse.

"Come no closer!" he shouted. "She uses you for her purposes. I will set you free!" He pressed upon their wills, and he felt her rise against him. He reached out and tore the Nethec Current from her, but she grasped at the Current of Isecan with strength that lashed back at him and broke upon the quthli like the onslaught of a thunderstorm.

"I have your mates and cubs," she told them.

"She binds you to slavery by enslaving your own."

Faro felt them cry out in pain at the conflict, caught in the struggle of wills not their own. The Currents worked upon them, but they could not understand them. Yet in the midst of this turmoil, they had stopped in their tracks, so close that Faro could recognize faces he had known for many years, faces twisted in confusion as their great hands gripped their heads. This is what they did to them.

Vireel showed them images of their mates, of their kids, of hunting grounds and fresh kills. She was skilled, and she was winning. She emerged from the edge of the trees, a dim shape in the starlight, full of malice. Her will was to subjugate him, yet he knew she would not kill him. She wanted to use him, like she used the quthli. He wavered. The quthli lurched toward him.

They would not take him. With his grip on the dissipating flow of the Nethec Current, Faro threw himself into the waves. The shock of the frigid water drove the breath from his lungs. A wave threw him against a rock, pain jolting his back. His head surfaced, and he tried to breathe, but his lungs felt constricted, too cold for the muscles to work. He fought, forcing a few gasps. He could barely concentrate, and he started to sink again.

Something approached, something massive from out in the sea. The Nethec Current flowed around it, moving it—the great sheet of ice.

Crush him. Crush him. Crush him.

He felt the distant wills as the ice bore down upon him. He tried to scramble up the rocks. Quth looked down from the jumbled rocks a few yards above him. The wet stone was smooth, and his numb hands slid away as a wave carried him back out. The ice surged toward him, and then it faltered. Faro felt the distant surge of resistance.

Crush him.

No.

He must be crushed.

No.

The blessing will pass to your other heir.

The defiant will weakened, but the momentum of the ice-sheet had weakened as well. It was close, and as the wills of the Synod strained once more, he sensed the Current even clearer. There was life in the water; he could see it. With a surge, it bore him upward and outward. It cast him upon the ice. Gasping, he crawled forward, struggled to his feet, his clothes sodden and heavy, his breath fogging in front of his face. Ahead, the sea was a vast white expanse of ice. It lurched beneath his feet, and he heard it grind against the shore. He staggered and fell again, crawling forward a few yards before regaining his feet. A quthli flung itself toward the ice, but the ice was shattering as it drove against the rocks. The confused mix of rock and ice and black sea swallowed the quthli, but others appeared ready to follow. Faro did not wait to see. He ran north, further out on the ice and away from shore.

"Falo!" Vireel's voice cut through the confusion, and a surge of warmth enveloped him, born by the Current of Isecan. Steam rose from his clothes. She was warming him. "Come back! I will let you be. Just come back!"

Far away, he felt the wills of the Synod straining toward him as well, struggling to see through Vireel's interference.

"Come back, Falo!" she shouted, her voice a high clear note in the darkness.

Faro did not turn back as he ran across the frozen sea beneath even colder stars.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.